Yakubs wrote on Mar 13, 2012, 10:24:What is a "beta weekend event" ?? Does that mean doing this pre-purchase doesn't get you into a full-fledged beta but rather some kind of limited Saturday/Sunday-only thing?

Yes, that's exactly what it means. Same sort of thing that SWTOR did.

Optional nickname wrote on Mar 13, 2012, 10:16:Can GW2 be played / adventured, alone? as I have no friends. I couldn't get into wow, it was a culture that wasn't part of me, perhaps GW2 is more up my alley. never played gw1. I like action RPG's.

Yes you can, though there are group based dungeons that you won't be able to do. There are still lots of areas where you can explore on your own, and meta-events that you can participate in with other people without having to know them or be part of a party/raid/whatever.

AnointedSword wrote on Mar 11, 2012, 14:30:I will keep an eye out for his work. We can call him names and condemn him to hell but when he left ID...a big part of what made ID great was missing...

I tend to agree. When he left an important part of what made ID great was lost. The catch is, it goes both ways. Since leaving, Romero hasn't had a team that has compensated in the areas that HE doesn't do well. It's left his games just as mediocre (or worse) than what ID's put out since.

Battlefield 3: Close Quarters -- In Battlefield 3: Close Quarters, players are dropped into a frantic, infantry-only theatre of war.

You can still have infantry only sections of a map where people who want that COD experience can fight in close quarters while another battle with all the elements of Battlefield is going on.

Like a shopping mall where the inside is basically infantry only and the outside all around the mall is full on balls to the wall combat with tanks, jeeps, jets, helo's. If you wanna be a little bitch and go play in the fountains and shit go for it but we'll be tearing shit up in the parking lot.

I hate all the maps where they were obviously trying to give it the COD treatment. They are horrid maps. Metro...my fucking god how did someone not pull that fucking disaster of a map on the drawing board?

This game would be so much better if they'd quit trying to change the core experience. It's a battlefield. Anything Goes. This is not some random corner of a building with a dozen guys having a gunfight. We want the whole goddamn building and 64 people and 6 blocks around as well and we want to bomb the shit out of people and fly around in a whirly death machine spitting cannon rounds at the poor bastards running around on the ground.

Man the FUCK UP you bitches. (DICE)

How dare other people get what they want too?! I demand that only MY wishes be catered to! *shakefist*

As for Metro, whether you like it or not, it's one of the most popular maps in BF3 with numerous 24/7 servers running it. But yeah, you're right, clearly no one likes it and it should have been removed.

Dmitri_M wrote on Mar 4, 2012, 06:14:ArmA's failing is it requires a VAST amount of modding to get it to a point where it becomes something truly special and unique with features not available in any other tactical shooter to date.. The built in campaigns, maps and features are terrible and BIS themselves have made little effort to take the game into a meaningful creative direction.

If you view R6 as a CQB shooter, Ghost Recon as a mid range shooter, then ArmA is the long range\size over detail shooter.

Of those three titles it is the least accessible though. Requires a lot of patience and the right level of mods to really enjoy. You can tailor it to be any sort of shooter you like. Most gamers can't invest the time in it.

On a base level though you'd still have to cope with the non-ID engine inherited control school with the characters head acting as a camera, rather than the player's view being tied directly to the weapon as it is in ID engines\conventional tac shooters. Personally it's never bothered me, but then I'm not a little bitch like many gamers. Even back when tactical shooters ruled the market, we'd have many hardcore PC guys LAN with us and complain about dying too easily in Swat, or the movement being too slow in R6 (compared to Quake) or the controls being clunky in OFP\Arma. Today's shitty consolised versions of R6 and Ghost Recon. That's what gamers really want. Enjoy guys.

I agree on most points. The problem is, you can't release a game today that isn't something special on it's own. If it requires a "VAST amount of modding" just to enjoy the game, then that's a complete failure of game design.

I'm sure my take on it isn't much different from many people who tried it. I heard the hype, said 'alright, I'll give it a shot.' Bought the base game, loaded it up, tried to like it. Deleted it a week later. Everything about the way the game handled screamed amateur, as though these people had never been introduced to the concept of a user-friendly interface/control scheme. They seriously need to hire someone competent in that field. Anyways, story continues, when I comment on my response to the game I'm told, "Oh, you need to have this expansion pack and these mods for the game to be 'really good'." I laugh my ass off and say fuck that, I already wasted enough money on that PoS, I'm not shelling out double the cash, much less spending the time needed to track down the mods and keep them updated just in the hopes that these people are right.

The way I see it, they made a shoddy ass product, filled with bugs and unnecessarily awkward game-play and then the gamers fixed it for them. That's not something I intend to reward a company for, even though I do applaud them for allowing their game to be modded in the first place.

Who knows, maybe BIS will make Arma3 something special right out of the gate, but I'm not holding any real hope for that after having been sorely disappointed by ARMA 1 and 2.

Except that I'm not the one that said it. I'm repeating what someone else brought as their argument. To be a strawman argument, I'd have to be misrepresenting what was said. I'm not.

You deliberately used it in a manner completely out of context from the way it was said, so yeah, strawman. In fact, I can't think of a more perfect illustration of the deliberate misrepresentation of an argument that constitutes the exact kind of unfair debating that makes the internet such a waste of time to debate on.

I took nothing out of context. I stated previously that he had agreed to a software agreement wherein the provider had given themselves the 'right' to scan a system to provide better service. He then attempted to oversimplify and draw an ad absurdum argument wherein rape was equivalent to scanning hard drives within the context of a software agreement.

That's the exact context the argument was made, and the exact context I took it when I stated that EA was being made out to be the equivalent of rapists.

If you can't see that in obvious clarity, then yes, debating is a waste of time.

...keep on raging about how evil EA is and how they're somehow equivalent to rapists and whatnot.

THAT would be a strawman. Thanks for the illustration.

Except that I'm not the one that said it. I'm repeating what someone else brought as their argument. To be a strawman argument, I'd have to be misrepresenting what was said. I'm not.

Creston wrote on Feb 28, 2012, 11:35:Oh yeah, they could put in their EULA that they have the right to come over whenever they want to and rape my family. Somehow I doubt that that'd be considered okay.

Teddy wrote on Feb 28, 2012, 15:28:...You'd have to push pretty damn hard in a court of law to prove any form of damage actually occurred from this to gain any measure of recompense.

The privacy act and the law governing computer misuse here in Canada covers things that you don't specifically authorize on your PC. So, if they are indeed scanning your PC for it, they're breaking the law and committing a criminal act. Probably in Germany too, canada's privacy law is modeled after germany's. Damage doesn't matter, all that's required it intent or action without the users consent.

Then take them to court and try it. I don't believe for one second that you'd even come close to winning. If anything you'd just be throwing more precedent behind the legality of EULA's when you come to court with the "I know they told me but I didn't bother to read it." defense. Works well in contract disputes too, I hear.

What's more, you don't even have any evidence that it's actually happened. You're just relying on hearsay and presumption. Has is not occurred to anyone that they got the information directly from Steam/Valve? As in the company? Just because you bought an EA game through Steam doesn't change the fact that you bought the game FROM EA, THROUGH Steam. Guaranteed EA has a record of the sale.

It's clearly not searching the registry for games, nor is it searching your HD, despite the whines of the masses. Origin came up with games that I've never had installed on this machine, ever, ones that also have exactly zero registry entries.

For all we know, Valve gave them the information necessary to do this. But hey, by all means, keep on raging about how evil EA is and how they're somehow equivalent to rapists and whatnot. Don't let facts get in the way of your rhetoric.

Creston wrote on Feb 28, 2012, 11:31:Is a EULA binding if I never read it? Many law professors and judges say that it can't be binding if people are expected to never read it. It's still a legal gray area.

Creston

No. Neither is the part about waiving your right to a trial or court and going directly to binding arbitration, at least not here. But that's in their eula too.

Oh yeah, they could put in their EULA that they have the right to come over whenever they want to and rape my family. Somehow I doubt that that'd be considered okay.

Just because they put shit in their EULA doesn't make it automatic law, even though certain corrupt asshole judges are trying their very fucking hardest to make it so.

Creston

Pretty heavily leaning on a strawman there. No, they cannot create an EULA that gives them the right to commit a crime against you (ie. rape). That doesn't mean they can't create one that gives them the right to do something that is not a criminal act. (ie. scanning your Hard Drive for EA games to provide links through their own service for games you already own).

You'd have to push pretty damn hard in a court of law to prove any form of damage actually occurred from this to gain any measure of recompense.

Creston wrote on Feb 28, 2012, 11:00:I'm pretty sure that I never allowed EA to scan my system at will,

Origin EULA wrote:2. Consent to Collection and Use of Data.

You agree that EA may collect, use, store and transmit technical and related information that identifies your computer (including the Internet Protocol Address), operating system, Application usage (including but not limited to successful installation and/or removal), software, software usage and peripheral hardware, that may be gathered periodically to facilitate the provision of software updates, dynamically served content, product support and other services to you, including online services

Creston wrote on Feb 23, 2012, 17:22:Yes, you CAN finish the game solo and max out solo. No, you CANNOT do every single side-mission or challenge solo—some are for groups only.

Creston

As I'm reading it, the question is, how MUCH content are you able to do as a single player, vs how much requires a group. It's one thing to say "You can get to max level solo!" without mentioning, that you do so buy killing 1,000,000 boars and missing out on all the actual fun stuff in the game.

That said, the original Guild Wars made it fairly doable playing solo (if you count having NPC minions/heroes as playing solo). You were able to run through all the game content that way. Some parts were absurdly difficult with the dim-witted minions, but they were doable.

My impression thus far of GW2 is that they're not going to have minions. That the main world and the story that you play through there is all soloable, but the dungeons are all group only. The 'meta-events' that occur out in the game world look somewhat similar to Rift's events (with the idea behind them expanded upon) where you come across something happening and whether or not you take part is up to you. No group/raid joining necessary, no schedules or preparation required.

Anyways in short, 'finishing the game' in the way they're referring to it means finishing the main story arc and reaching max level. It does NOT mean experiencing ALL content in the game.

WarpCrow wrote on Feb 14, 2012, 23:44:Eh... I probably would have bought it before now except for the fact that Tripwire saw fit to censor it here in Germany. I got around that for RO2 but it's a bit of a hassle every time.

Saw fit to? Isn't that an obligation under law there? I was under the impression that the regulations in Germany were more strict than most other places in the world and thus game companies MUST provide a censored version, or not sell at all there.

born2expire wrote on Feb 14, 2012, 21:09:I don't get it, I've tried 3 times to get into the original ME, but could never be bothered for more than an hour all three times. Got ME2 for free, tired it for an hour, yawn. And after 30 mins I alt F4'ed this, yup its Mass Effect, i don't get the appeal.

Bioware still sucks. Do a PROPER Baulders Gate sequel/reboot and don't use the Bioware formula (ie interactive movie) and then I'll be interested.

Plenty of people enjoy them so there's clearly a market for them. I'm just not sure what it is, myself. As a shooter, this game is absolutely awful with some of the most poorly thought out and frustrating mechanics I've ever seen. As an RPG it's character development is superficial at best.

The horde mode multiplayer dealie is entertaining enough, up until enemies start lobbing grenades at you and makes obvious the failings of a catchall button that does like 9 different things. Whoever thought up the idea of having the spacebar be the run button, and the dodge/roll button, and the cover button, and the leap to other cover button, AND the use button all rolled into one needs to be fired or at least moved away from any job where they can influence UI or control mechanics. That all aside, that side of the game is entertaining enough for free, but I'm sure as hell not buying it.

Flawless auto-resume on game downloads that actually worksAuto-patching feature (with the option to disable it if you prefer older builds).Easy as pie game installation from archives again that actually worksNotification of which friend is playing which game with one-click join functionality.A working (finally) offline mode.Easy and robust gifting and trading features.

Unless something has changed since I tried it, Origin offered none of these.

Origin does have an offline mode, it's one of the options in it's menu (gear icon). It also has auto-patching, though it's an all or nothing feature in Origin, whereas in Steam you can select whether to auto-update on a per-game basis.

Dmitri_M wrote on Feb 11, 2012, 11:15:Why would anyone want to play this when JA2 and the 1.13 mod are still eminently playable.

And people wonder why developers don't make more games like this, when people refuse to even try new games in favor of playing 10 year old games.

The reason I'm playing it is because I bought it and I tend to like playing games I bought. The reason I bought it is because I actually like developers to make games in this particular genre, instead of just giving up on the whole subsection of games people won't buy anything new when "JA2 is still eminently playable".

Incidentally, people are already making rudimentary mod tools. The first of which allows you to modify the stats of mercs, so you can create one to your liking out of the lower tier mercs. Not as nice as having an in-game system to create a balanced custom merc, and you'll have to make do with that particular merc's picture and voice for now, but it's a start and a way to get one with a unique set of stats and perks that you like.

eRe4s3r wrote on Feb 10, 2012, 11:16:What else can i compare it to but the top reference.. true its a mod but it still enhances the core game this remake is supposed to be remaking.

Thats the first thing a remake should have taken inspiration from, no? Modders literally already made a JA2 remake, and thats JA2 1.13 - the standard reference for this genre with no equal.

As someone else has mentioned, it would be awesome if they could have done this but at the same time, that mod has been in development for 7 years. Yes, just the mod alone. Considering that, plus the near 5 year development time for JA2 and you've got a development timeline that is impossible to match for any but the largest and most well funded studios, and none of them would be willing to spend that much time on a genre that isn't in vogue at the moment, not to mention on a single platform.

I'd love to have seen a lot of the features from 1.13 make it into the game, I'd love to have seen most of the features taken out from vanilla in the game, but neither is really likely to happen. For now I'll enjoy the game for what it is, and I'll keep bugging the developers to implement new (or old) features.

They've already said they've not ruled out fog of war as an option in the future. They said they tried it and it 'wasn't fun', which is a pretty idiotic thing to say, but with enough cajoling we might get them to put it back in as an option at the very least.

To each their own, but unlike some here I'd rather support a developer that is remaking or continuing titles I enjoy and encourage them to try and improve, rather than refuse to buy and insult the devs until no one bothers making these games again, ever.

As I said earlier in the thread, the game has been decent fun for me and as far as I'm concerned, it's a solid game. It's not as good as the original, but if people are only going to accept a game as "good" if it's better than arguably the best tactical game of all time, then all they've done is guarantee their own perpetual disappointment.